Trees, two-timing humans and how to get on the mews

Dear George,

I would call myself SuperCat as my real name is irrelevant for this story. Why SuperCat? Because I manage two sets of adopted human pets; one on a permanent basis and one on a semi-permanent basis. Summertime I have countless “occasional” residences, but that’s yet another story. I spend my days in my semi-permanent residence eating, sleeping, playing, scratching the dog to get off the sofa, pushing their elderly cat off the armchair. The cat is putting up a fight but the others obey in total confusion. When the night comes (or when “she” – my permanent human pet - comes from work) I move to my permanent residence where I train my human into “cat adoration”. She almost reached “perfection”.

Also, I keep an eye on the neighborhood and my two houses from a strategic place as you can see in the photo. I “melt” into that tree and no one sees me there. But, my spot is in danger as I heard my adopted human male saying that he wants to cut the tree off. I’m sure their cat has something to do with it since, I have to admit, she doesn’t like me and she’s the only one knowing my hiding spots. This cat put in this man’s mind that the tree is dead and better cut it off …..just to get me off her property; I’m sure that’s the reason.

But George, I can’t let this happen since there are no other trees “with a view”.

I will hung on and fight for my tree until the last breath (of the tree, of course) but may be you have a better idea how I can reclaim my tree? Should I call the municipality? By the way, aren’t trees protected?

Anxiously yours,

SuperCat

Dear SuperCat

Congratulations, you are showing all the initiativeness and deviousness that makes us cats rulers of the world. Setting up two homes is an extremely intelligent move for any urban cat. One home for the evening meal, full central heating, warm beds, and nice breakfast. The other for daytime - lunch, full central heating, warm beds for that post lunch nap, and perhaps a small tea before setting off to the other home. We cats two-time "owners" all the time and often they don't even know they are time-sharing cat. Poor pets.

Trees... it sounds a serious dilemma. Here in the UK humans can put a tree preservation order on a tree, by ringing their local authority. This wheeze may not be available in your country. If it is, see if you can purrsuade your evening humans to do this. Here it can be done anonymously (I think) and the tree owner is just told about it afterwards.

It's sometimes difficult to find a municipality which takes cats' views seriously. Write to them anyway and keep a copy. Then send this copy with a covering letter to your local paper. A nice covering letter with this very glamorous photo attached, written by your secretary, and signed with your pawprint, should go down very well. What local paper could resist this? If they have any mews sense they will run it.

Love George